It suddenly came to me that once I had thought to have forgotten all the details inside my grandparents' home, until this very moment. I look into the small kitchen to the left…the 'all around room' as I was fond of describing it…a portal of food and scattered personal items delight…I recognize a small glass with silver bottom next to a cubby that held a bottle of Strega liquor I used to love. It is almost as though I still see smudges left by my fingers on it.

I also notice an open champagne bottle on ice, as if to celebrate my home coming. But all is silent.

I timidly step into the bedroom past the kitchen, our bedroom of yore, and the bedroom of my mother, my aunt and my uncle when youngsters…and in the corner next to the large window…still leaning against the wall the large red suitcase we had always at 'the ready' and that had followed us in all our trips.

Between the folds of the colorful blanket on my single bed, perennially unmade_ tucked away in a corner of the room, I discover a misplaced old fountain pen…and under the ruffled pillow_ a yellowed scrap of paper with the name of a soccer team on it…I had been asked to join the team after coming back from Argentina. I was so honored by it that I slept with that name "Stabiesi" under my pillow…and my soccer shoes hanging from the bed post…but the shoes were not there…

I smile in sadness …years so intense and burned in haste, flamed away as dry wood that left brilliant sweet memories and nothing more. I give one last look and realize the illusion …all is under a thick layer of dust that blankets the apartment's interior.

I will not open windows to let sunlight in_ best that all remains in penumbra, that nothing tramples this serene stillness.

A slight treading of feet _ abruptly brings me back to reality. "I need to get going" I mutter…before I lose myself in this strange dimension…before I lose all sense of measure and keep looking in times past for something that once was and that can never be again.

Someone is approaching…I am up and pull on my jacket as to shake it free from the imaginary creases of time, the sadness and the rust of years past.

Looking up I welcome, with a sigh of relief, the mild waft of air across my face.

The footsteps...the person, slowly approaching, comes into focus…he calls me out with a radiant smile and a nod…he is observing me with intensity…yes, I exclaim…tears in my eyes…yes, my beloved son, it is me your father…

without stopping…I move on…I am almost out of the building when I shout 'Farewell…farewell…my beloved little boy…' with the sun of the early morning resplendent in my eyes and its warmth enshrouding my shoulders.

He didn't even know what day of the week or what month it was. It had been a while since even time had lost almost all significance.

He was seeing the fading sun of the evening, a few hours from one of those summer sunsets that last so long and slow that seem never to end beyond the horizon.

Almost with the same listlessness he was driving along one of the world's hairiest and most scenic drives veering vertiginously around the jagged mountains, providing vista after stunning vista_ through the valleys' shortcuts and the distant soccer fields that little by little were being obfuscated by the sun setting shadows.

Along the curves, while becoming aware of the so many times he had distractedly lost the beauty of those shimmering landscapes, he felt an increasing shudder as he was getting closer to his destination.

Soon it would be Christmas day, he thought...but a sad day...he knew where he was going_to a very silent place...devoid of Christmas cheer...

He could only hear the engine noise of the old car he was driving, that hesitated at each change of gears, in the tortuous hills along the usual roadway_ so he decided to turn on the radio.

He was scanning the frequencies looking for a station with clear sound, but found nothing as he was too far from the city. He kept on that dull buzzing of the radio as background _ preferring it to the gasping sound of the engine.

His mind was full with unspeakable thoughts and embattled feelings, when suddenly all that noise, disappointments, sadness, and the endless curves of the road, began to get on his nerves.

Frustrated, he took his eyes off the road for a moment, by now convinced, as he was, to know all its contours by memory…and looked directly at the radio dial while searching for a clear station_

He looked up just as the car, moving too fast, was at beginning of a dangerous curve; he needed to quickly slow down… He knew his brakes needed work, so by instinct he stepped hard on the brake pedal while at the same time pulling up the hand brake lever.

The tires were somewhat worn from the years of driving and he had been meaning to replace them.

The car lost the bond with the road and began to abruptly slide along its brink towards the precipice. In a lucid moment he tried to reach and open the driver's side door but, fortunately, the car came to rest with a thump.

But, out of the windshield, he could only see the void beneath him. He wanted to exit the car but he was petrified with adrenaline sweat sliding slowly from the temples down under his chin.

Looking out he realized he had ended on the edge of a chasm. The valley by now almost completely suffused in sunset shades…a huge darkening hole ready to swallow him down below.

His hand and arm stiffened and all his muscles, from the forearm to the shoulder, tense in a vise grip on the hand brake lever.

He was still, helpless, unable to move…completely blocked, unable to even move a finger.

The place I was headed for was indeed silent, somber and desolate...I knew the entrance gates would be drawn at 9 PM_

Looking down at the floor board I was telling myself not to panic and not to move erratically lest I succeeded in launching the car down the abyss.

I was only hearing the rapid beating of my heart and the constant buzz of the radio. The engine was now dead. I knew that I had to get out in some way…but as much as my brain was inciting me to act…my muscles could not react.

I was trying to breathe in patterns to calm down my runaway beating heart and regain some lucidity. Even to this day, I am not sure what happened in that moment, maybe I had lost consciousness.

I remember my sight fogging up…my heart slowly normalizing_ and suddenly I began to see, or maybe imagine_ through the windshield _ very far beyond the valley under the abyss_ so nitidly and clearly framed in my sight _ the image of an old familiar house at the center of a beautiful neighborhood, with a train station to the east and the Mediterranean to the west with a last sparkle of beaches, kissed by the flaming sunset...the streets crowded in a spectacular array of Christmas sights and sounds in a potpourri of Christmas cheer_

In proximity of the red brick roof, a large, well maintained portal gate led up the stairs to the entrance way.

Instantly, almost as tough I had entered the house, that image brought to mind my old house where I grew up, and where I had played soccer games with so many kids_ from the adjacent habitations_ in my great playroom and in the expanse out front.

I was inexplicably sensing the rush I had felt in completing my home work from the elementary school when in the spring afternoons I would begin to hear the fabulous dull sounds of a soccer ball rebounding on the ground, knowing that a game was about to begin and I was expected to be part of a team.

At the same time trickling memories of the times I had lived in that house with my family, took grip of my mind, with a series of images of moments experienced together in happiness and without fear of the future.

Like when my father built a beloved soccer goal at the end of our garden so we could practice shots on a goal keeper until dark most days…and the pride in hearing my mother boasting of my scholarly successes to parents of other boys.

I was wondering how a sort of a wall could exist to divide two periods so different of my life.

I was trying to understand how this could be_ what pathway was responsible to have guided me to this point, to find myself looking into the garden where as a child I played serenely with my friends, while instead I was in such a precarious balance on the brink of a void.

The open space of the valley below was like a mirror of the conflicting and inconsistent state of mind ravaging my consciousness. I was beginning to realize how much I had lost in my life and how I had arrived to this moment.

I thought maybe it is time that simply changes all things; maybe it is question of luck, or maybe as in mixing a deck of cards.

Many times you cannot really blame yourself for losing a game or two…there are so many variables…so many things to take into consideration…so many possibilities of errors.

And the more errors we make, the more your cards seem to get worse, and your games more difficult…to the point where you realize it is no longer in your best interest to continue to play.

I was trying to find a logical thread that collated all those beautiful memories to the situation in which I was_ in reality. But any such sense eluded me continuously…and in the end I began to realize that they were the same sensations I had felt every morning upon awakening.

Every time a new day began, I would promise myself to change, that from that moment on _it would all be different…that finally I would be able to find a reason, one day after another, forever removing that sensation of helplessness in dealing with sorrow and sadness, that I knew was to become my constant companion some day. But it only took little…like just getting up from bed…to make all these resolutions vanish, like a dream with open eyes…dreams being all pervasive in my life.

The same sensation of that inner void that once seemed to have taken me far from all that really meant to me…that dragged me in a perseverance of my errors, that it had taken away my self awareness, plunging me into a vortex full of strength but devoid of soul, that forced me to spin unto the self, without ever leaving me time to understand what was inside of me.

I reopened my eyes, at the horizon now a sun crushed between the mountains beyond the valley. My hands cold and sweaty shaking on the hand brake…a nauseous sensation.

I felt empty inside, not even any more fear of falling…I realized the fingers on the hand brake hesitating…maybe my body wanted to let go, realizing I had lost everything…I imagined what it would be like falling into a void.

It was as in the sometimes nightmares awakening me in the heart of the night.

My face in the rear view mirror reflected nothing but all my wrong decisions that maybe had led me to this point. In particular the self emotional isolation from the very people that continued to love me, inner shadows notwithstanding.

It struck me that regardless of the times past…of the errors committed…despite all the 'games' I had lost_ I was more like the boy who played in the garden, in my memories and in the dreams in which I had found me again.

Maybe in the end it wasn't really necessary to get into an old car and run afar to isolate from the world…to feel alone.

...my mother used to speak softly to me…there was no 'snow-white' _no 'red riding hood' _or a 'sleeping beauty'_ her stories were spontaneous and sad…they would tell of a little boy prisoner in a labyrinth without end, in scary subterranean and unknown places, inhabited by darkness, solitude and mystery.

But then the magic came…my mother would sing a haunting nursery rhyme…her voice would dispel the fear… orient the boy's steps towards a hidden exit…and suddenly the light returned and the boy was safe in his parents' arms.

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